There's a Death God in Chicago PD Prison
by lalunaticscribe
Summary: I was halfway out of the car, muttering darkly about the fat lot of good flowers are going to do to that,when the petals shot straight at the monsters, shredding the monster to bits of bloody flesh, bone, then particles which faded off.


_**In memorial of the fic I just deleted, Scouts are so Annoying; I wrote this fic as a testament to one of my not-so-good works. In memory of the fic who could never really make it…**_

_If you break your neck, if you have nothing to eat, if your house is on fire, then you got a problem. Everything else is inconvenience_.

* * *

Surprise, surprise; Chicago's finest has come to my door, instead of me going to theirs, for once in a long time.

Sergeant Karrin Murphy stood in the mess I call my living room, at eight am one fine spring day. This is extremely ominous, if you're me. Generally, the days that start out best end up as the worst, or so I've learnt.

Besides her is my grasshopper apprentice, Molly, who apparently decided that once again, she should take up the Goth look and apparently got a few more piercings, which made me wonder where else in the human body can you stick an ornament, and then shy far, far away from that thought immediately. 'Harry, what on earth are you doing on the floor?' she asked me incredulously.

'Fungus demon,' I heard myself mumble feebly, which led me to the horrible conclusion that I was face down over the Elvis rug of my living room. Hey, it was free. 'Fell asleep after obliterating the bugger.'

And apparently Mister needs potty training, I decided one breath later.

'Get up, Dresden.' Murphy said. At five nothing, weighing a hundred and nothing, and still kinda, dare I say it, cute, Murphy did not look like the ex-head of Chicago's monster hunters. The ex- part, because of the lousy bureaucrats over at the city council, monster hunter because she works at Special Investigations, Chicago's answer to weirdness in general.

Hey, don't look at me that way; I only work as a consultant there.

'What's up, Murph?' I asked, pushing myself up from the rug drowsily. Someone handed me a glass. 'Thanks.'

I downed the entire thing and, not expecting it was Coke, spluttered as the carbonic acid made it way down my gullet. 'What the…?'

'Good, you're awake.' Murphy said. 'We caught a suspect that we think is somehow involved to the mysterious property damage last month. I need a positive ID on the suspect, but Chicago doesn't seem to have any files on him. Molly here says that you can vouch for him, so we came here to find you.'

I groaned, mentally assessing what happened last month. Last month, the Blue Beetle, or more accurately multi-coloured Beetle, got smashed when this huge monster crushed it in a bid to eat me. It also turned out to have all repairs paid for when I went to Mike's Mechanics to get the Beetle er, stuck back together. Unfortunately, it also meant that the Beetle now had this neat scar on the top of its hood, oddly shaped like a crosshair. Someone up there apparently takes a horrible interest in seeing me suffer. On the bright side, I got paid a cool ten grand for the simplest magic in my arsenal; definitely one of the better jobs.

'So who's the suspect?' I asked, wiping off the Coke around my mouth onto the sleeve of my Mr Sad T-shirt. Kids, don't try this at home.

'Clamming up,' Murphy replied. 'When we tried the good-cop bad-cop routine, the two cops got thrown out.'

'By whom?' I asked, pulling on my leather duster.

'The perp, who was still handcuffed when he did it,' Murphy shrugged as she answered.

I stopped and stared at her. 'You're joking. Don't you have a photo?'

At the same moment I received a photo of this sexy-as-all-get-out guy, the phone rang. The phone was about the only electric thing in my house that still actually worked, since I needed it to. I picked up the phone. 'Dresden speaking,' I said into the receiver.

'Mister Dresden.' A young boy's voice cut through the annoying static coming through the phone line. 'I have a job for you.'

'Okay and this is…' I looked at the photo again. The guy in the photo was really handsome, if I dare say so myself. All pale skin, high cheekbones, and black eyes. Even the way he carried himself seemed almost royally aloof, and the long black locks framing his attractively thin face simply enhanced the image, unlike most men, on which long hair was almost definitely not a good idea. Really, the idea of a human man that can look so much like a Greek god was too good to be true.

Which meant that it was too good to be true; Hell, for all I know, he could be White Court, he looks like Thomas's Japanese cousin. Somehow, the thought of that was really possible, disturbingly so.

I was drawn from my thoughts on whether this guy was White Court, Sidhe, or some other supernatural creature when the voice spoke again: 'Your ten-grand client, Mister Dresden.'

The phone dropped from my grasp, landing on Mouse, which, for a West Highland Dogasaurus, can be pretty sneaky. Sometimes, it just really doesn't pay to get up at all.

* * *

We made it to Chicago PD in record time, thanks to Murphy's F1 driving. Within ten minutes of my feet landing on asphalt, I was whisked in to SI office, where the new head, Stallings, awaited.

'Murphy, the perp's not breathing.' Were the first words that came out of my mouth. 'That's what you were going to say, right?'

Stallings looked at me, and I mean _looked_ at me, in the how-the-hell-did-you-know-that way, nodding as he did so.

'Right, people, there is a giant monster on the loose, on the roof, and I need everyone out of here.' I said, summoning every ounce of authority in my soul as I did so. 'I'm going to the roof. Molly, I need you to cast a shield, okay? Things will get ugly.'

My apprentice nodded, already trying to focus her attention. Murphy drew her gun. 'I'm coming with.'

'Murph, bullets aren't going to hurt them.' I told her. 'Bullets made of silver are not going to do it either.' I added before she could say anything.

'Dammit, Dresden, I'm…' she was cut off as the ceiling merely a foot away from me broke, caving down, and a monster tumbled through.

This one was kinda different from the one I met. Firstly, the one I met was turquoise, this one was purple. Second, the mask was different; it had black markings that made it look a bit like a fish. Thirdly, it was a bit more on the tall, thin side.

That did not change the fact that it had really big teeth and was currently having no problem using them, as it let out a roar, the amalgation of human screams grating on my senses. Beside me, Molly was crouching on the ground, her hands desperately clutching her ears, trying to cut off the sound.

Then, this samurai came down from the hole and plunged an entire katana into the monster's mask, killing the entire thing.

As the monster faded out, the samurai, who turned out to be the guy, except he was now dressed in black kimono with this white coat with black patterns near the hem, except that he accessorised with a scarf and some sort of ceramic ornament over the left side of his face. The effect was really kind of pleasing, if you didn't count the rather bloody sword he was hefting in one hand.

I took my head and smacked it in the wall. Somehow or other, I just managed to get involved with them again.

* * *

'So let me get this straight,' Murphy repeated in disbelief. 'You got called by a former client, who offered you another ten grand,' she motioned to the perp, 'in order to call this guy's bail. And that he's apparently the good guy, and thus the only key to defeat the monsters.'

The perp in question, by the name of Byakuya Kuchiki, was sitting across us in the interrogation room, still staring blankly. Molly was eyeing him with something akin to adoration or simply a hormonal teenage crush. I hoped it was the latter; I'd have a hard time explaining to Charity what the hell was wrong with her kid.

'Yeah, that sounds about right.' I told her. 'So I need to call bail before the next monster attack. To be fair, he could just walk out anytime. He's simply respecting the authorities by waiting for bail.' Murphy looked at him, and he inclined his head regally. 'So why did he clam up?'

'Miss Murphy,' he spoke for the first time, in a sexy baritone that I thought would have even Thomas green with envy, 'what am I supposed to say? I am a god of death, and I'm supposed to be guiding souls to the next life? Even I have enough common sense to avoid the asylum.'

Murphy was now giving him her complete and undivided attention. I put it down to pheromones. 'Okay, so right now you're charged with property damage.' I blinked at the damage in question. 'How did you destroy a road?'

'There was a fight.' He simply answered. I left it at that.

'And quite possibly, the sergeant may consider adding another item to that list.' He continued.

'What?' Murphy asked suspiciously, her hand drifting to the gun.

Right on cue, a big green monster turned up. When I say turned up, I meant that it opened a door through the Nevernever and walked through, not the crash-through-brick-walls routine. It leapt straight for Byakuya…

And it was blasted. I looked at the ash that was previously a Hollow, then looked at Byakuya's fingers, with was smoking.

Murphy immediately signed bail afterwards, and I kept mentioning jokes of smoking hot fingers every time we passed a roadside hotdog vendor, until she finally lost it and got the gun out, prompting me to open mouth, insert foot, and forget about smoking weenies for the rest of the trip back.

* * *

Back to the present now; after I managed to sign bail [thus sacrificing a couple of thousand bucks in the process], I got another set of problems involving a frozen road as Murphy pulled up there.

High above said frozen road, which was coincidentally right outside my apartment building, Hitsugaya, in all his four-foot-three floating frozen glory was conjuring a freaking ice dragon towards the monsters, which this time looked like a bad horror reject gone wrong.

I blinked. 'Where the hell did the ice dragon come from?' I asked Byakuya.

Or, more accurately, his empty body, wedged between me and Molly; the real Byakuya was standing outside, holding his sword parallel to his body, and muttering some words I couldn't hear. The sword's blade dissolved into flower petals as another of the monsters showed up.

I was halfway out of the car, muttering darkly about the fat lot of good flowers are going to do to that, like it was going up against a troll, armed only with a flower, blasting rod at the ready, when the petals shot straight at the monsters, shredding the sucker to bits.

Sometimes the flower wins after all.

* * *

Of course, when they paid me in two envelopes, telling me that one was a smoother, they then removed the ice by means of a fiery conflagration that even Murphy had to back away from, and then disappeared back into the Nevernever, there was this acrid smell of asphalt, tar and possibly singed hair. Mine. There was also the sound of police sirens rapidly approaching.

Molly looked at the rather wet, but otherwise defrosted road, then turned to me and asked: 'How come you don't know that?'

'Kid,' I said, now wearily rummaging through my several pockets for my keys, 'you're too young to know. That comes as you get older.'

She tapped her chin thoughtfully. 'So I'll have to wait until I become a hidebound dinosaur like you?'

That was it. Molly was never going within hearing distance of Ramirez again, I decided, as a police car turned up, no doubt to investigate the fire, followed by a whole fire engine, to put out said fire. Surprisingly, all of them had the same expression when they caught sight of me. Perhaps I could tell them I was practising for the Fourth of July?

* * *

_We acquire the strength we have overcome._

_**That's all, folks.**_


End file.
